The Glenn McGrath line – "five-nil; it will be five-nil" – seems to be out of bounds for English cricketers. However, in the highly unlikely event of England winning the series against Australia by five games to nil, they will displace the visitors as the No1 ODI team in the world. Obviously it can't happen – there's too much rain around, for a start – and all the evidence from the first game at Lord's, a fine advert for the 50-over format, is that this will be a tight, keenly contested series.

It resumes on Sunday at The Oval, where England may be handicapped by the absence of Jimmy Anderson. A groin strain could well sideline the Lancastrian, in which case England would have to desert their policy of sticking their best Test bowlers in the team. The management will not be disposed to take any risks with Anderson with the South Africa Test series on the horizon. If he is unavailable, they will turn to either Jade Dernbach or Samit Patel.

The policy of playing "proper" bowlers in this summer's ODIs has been handsomely vindicated so far. Such a strategy is encouraged by the presence of two new balls, one at either end, for ODI cricket. This has been a positive move by the legislators; the longer bowlers are minded to dismiss their opponents rather than just contain them, the better the game.

For the West Indies' batsmen earlier in the summer and Australia's at Lord's on Friday there has been little respite and no weak link to attack. That situation may change at The Oval.

The consequence of playing so many bowlers is that the batsmen up the order are required to play with more circumspection, albeit in the knowledge that not such a large total is required. For the moment, early-innings pinch-hitters are out of vogue for England. Instead, Alastair Cook has relished having so many reliable options in the field.

One of those options has been Steven Finn, who bowled the final over of the match at Lord's. Increasingly, he is taking more responsibility for England, especially in one-day cricket. After the Lord's game he explained how England's pace men go about their business.

"At the end of our marks, everyone talks to each other; everyone passes on what has worked for them in the over before. It is a great unit to be involved in because everyone shares their own information. You have to hunt as a pack to get results."

A feature of the bowling of both sides at Lord's was that the ball was propelled quickly and often aggressively, which is not always the case in ODI cricket. It was interesting and instructive to compare the speeds posted by the bowlers.

Young Pat Cummins (19) and old Brett Lee (35) are no slouches. Nor is Stuart Broad. Yet it was Finn who bowled the fastest delivery of the day. He claims this does not preoccupy him — unlike Darren Gough, who would almost crick his neck in his eagerness to see what speed the radar gun had shown for his last delivery.

"I didn't take much notice," Finn said. "I am not fussed about the speed. I didn't run and think I wanted to bowl quick. It was nice to turn around and see it at 90 miles an hour but it is not something that plays on my mind." The idea, I suppose, is that it should play on the batsmen's mind. In this sort of series, the bright young English pups who have been excelling at county level, like Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler, might well notice the difference, since there is not much pace to be found in domestic cricket.

England have prospered by relying predominantly on their Test players for one-day success. The two intruders, currently to be regarded as the white-ball specialists are Craig Kieswetter behind the stumps and Eoin Morgan, dropped from the Test team, but who was magnificent at Lord's.

Finn was not so surprised by Morgan's innings, which contained four sixes, three of which came from consecutive deliveries faced by the Irishman. "I have played a lot of cricket with Eoin since we were 16-years-old", Finn said, "and I have seen him do that many times before. To have someone like that in those situations is fantastic. How he comes up with some of those shots I have got no idea. He is a little wizard".

So what of the prospect of being the world No1 in ODI cricket after a 5-0 win against the Australians? "It is a great thing to have there but no one has mentioned it. We are not looking that far ahead," he said. And I thought Finn made a point of modelling himself on the great McGrath.